B17 vs ME109

Air to air combat WWII

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• ME109
• B17
• WWII
• Germany

[aaKonda]

About 4750 B-17:s were dropped in WW2, about 1/3 of the production.

In 14 October 1943, 77 B-17:s were lost over Europe, the day is known as the Black Thursday.

[deino117]

It was damn risky for the attacking fighters too. Those B-17s could dish it out.

[Blockmaster98]

@hollebKN are you Crazy??B 17 is so cool!  I Love USA!!

[hollebKN]

I like American terror bombers being shot down.

[DaveBC1]

@midairflyer - Yes, of course. I'm not sure what your point is. If you fire a 20mm or 30mm explosive round at supersonic speed into a bomb it will probably explode.

[midairflyer]

you can see where the fighters kill the the gunners, no way the can sit in their position and stay there. 50mm guns and 20mm cannons vs an airframe = dead gunners

[midairflyer]

@DaveBC1 omg really?? you know what a FUSE is?

[DaveBC1]

@pervertt - I would guess the attacking pilot would aim at the engines because if he aims at the fuselage he might hit a bomb and cause the plane to explode. Close up that would kill him as well. Also he may not be completely without empathy and shooting the engines gives the crew a chance to survive.

[pervertt]

@DaveBC1 Absolutely right. A good fighter pilot attacking from the rear would often pick off the tail gunner first before doing more damage to the B-17. Luftwaffe officers worked out that it took about 20 hits with 20mm cannon to bring down a B-17 from behind (Wikipedia). Not the sort of damage you could inflict with a quick pass. Note the fighter pilot aiming for the left engine rather than the fuselage when he was really close.

[DaveBC1]

I would guess that the reason why the crew isn't firing back is because they are dead or wounded. They wouldn't bale out before the aircraft had been crippled. Also they are probably flying at over 20,000ft, breathing via oxygen masks and shivering in 30° below zero cold next to an open window with no armour plate in a flying petrol tank carrying three tons of high explosive. They had balls these men.

[madcitymcflyer]

This was in fact used as a German propaganda film, but it is in fact actual gun camera footage of an attack on a fully-crewed B-17. German gun cameras didn't record in frame-to-frame real time. A typical firing pass actually took only two to three seconds. Remember too that the gunners were bundled in sheepskin, parachute harnesses and flak suits trying to keep their 50 cal. 150 lb. guns aimed in a furious slipstream and hopefully, not jamming or freezing up. Not like Hollywood...

[fish621825]

I'm sick and tired of seeing this same film of this B-17. This is a German Propaganda Film showing German pilots how easy it was to shoot the B-17.What they didn’t tell the pilots that the crew had already bailed out! You can see that none of the gunners on the B-17 shooting back at them. Even on the second pass the guns have not moved on the B-17. Our gunners would not let Germans get that close and not fire at them. This was told to me by a high ranking C.A.F. member over 10 years ago!